Adventures in Babysitting
by ShortySC22
Summary: Part 2 of The Power Stayed On. AU: The Blackout didn't happen. Connor goes to visit Bass and ends up meeting Charlie for the first time.


**This is Part 2 of The Power Stayed On and follows after "Homecoming." Not sure where else I'll go with this series, but expect more random pieces. I don't own Revolution, enjoy!**

_June 2014_

Connor's life had changed a lot in the past year. First, his mom had moved him to her hometown of Jasper, Indiana, then he found out his dad was not who his mom claimed and his dad was alive, he had been shuffled back and forth between his mom and dad, and now he was going to spend two weeks at his dad's house to start off summer vacation. When he first met his dad, he wasn't sure what to make of him. He couldn't even call him "Dad" and started out just calling him Bass until Thanksgiving, by that time they had both gotten comfortable with each other.

He first met his father last June and spent a week getting to know him. At the end of last summer, Connor and his mom flew out to visit his dad who was now living in Virginia with his best friend Miles. Miles became an uncle to Connor and usually helped tease his dad about anything. In October, he flew out again with mom for Columbus Day, for Thanksgiving his dad joined them in Jasper, for Christmas his mom flew out with him, for President's Day and Easter his dad flew out to see them. This trip was the first time he'd be without his mom. His grandfather had some business to take care of in DC for work so he was flying out with him and he wasn't sure how he was getting home just yet. But that didn't bother Connor, he was looking forward to spending a while with his dad.

He loved the house in Jasper, it was a nice house and he was lucky to have a large bedroom, but he also enjoyed spending time with his dad, who didn't nag him the way his mom did. He didn't have his own bedroom at his dad's house, but the guest bedroom was pretty much his bedroom. Whenever he and his mom would visit, Dad slept on the couch, Mom took Dad's room, and he took the guest room. Connor wasn't stupid, he could tell that his parents, though they may have loved each other at some point, they worked best as friends now and there was no hope of him pulling any kind of Parent Trap to get them back together. Miles actually laughed at that the first time Connor mentioned it when his parents weren't around.

His dad met him at the airport, he hugged his grandfather goodbye and told Dad all about the end of the school year. Since he had been on the first flight out, it was still early when they arrived at the house. Dad had told him to be quiet when they got in because Miles was still sleeping and he also had his niece visiting for the week. Connor was a little surprised Miles's niece had come to visit at the same time, usually Miles went to Chicago to visit his brother. He heard footsteps coming downstairs, definitely too light to be Miles.

"G'morning Charlotte. This is my son Connor. Connor, this is Miles's niece Charlotte," Bass introduced them but immediately, Charlotte made a face.

"I told you a bazillion times, call me Charlie! Nice to meet you Connor. What's for breakfast?"

"Are you hungry Connor? I was going to make either pancakes or waffles, your choice," Bass asked.

"Homemade waffles or frozen waffles?" Connor questioned. At home, his mom always made waffles from scratch but he knew his dad would always go for the easy way.

Just as Dad was about to answer, Charlie added her own input, "If we're eating pancakes they have to have chocolate chips. That's mine and Uncle Miles's favorite."

"Frozen waffles it is then," Dad sighed and Connor could see this was going to be a long week with Charlie. "Charlie, go wake Miles up and tell him it's waffles this morning."

"Kay, but I want lots and lots of syrup on mine," she said as she ran up the stairs.

"Does she always have this much energy?" Connor asked. He didn't spend much time around younger kids and wasn't used to the overabundance of energy this early.

"Yes. She and Miles also have extreme sweet teeth and cover everything in sugar, so watch out." As Miles was coming down the stairs, both of their phones rang. Connor pulled the waffles out of the toaster and set them on a plate for Charlie start. He debated giving Charlie a knife, but it didn't matter because she ended up grabbing one herself before plopping down and smothering the waffles in syrup. He liked syrup, sure, but she was drowning her waffles in it, bleh, that's way too much.

Dad called him into the living room while Miles made his own stack of waffles to drown in syrup. Connor was curious why he was called into the living room, usually Dad just said everything in front of Miles, he knew there were no secrets there and learned that going to Miles wouldn't stop him from getting in trouble.

"Listen, that was work and something important came up that Miles and I need to take care of this morning. We should be back by this afternoon, but in the meantime, I need you look after Charlie. Think you can handle it? Then I swear, we'll head into the city, whatever you want today," Dad said, his eyes pleading for Connor to say yes. He was disappointed, this was the first trip where they were going to spend time in DC and check out all of the museums and memorials. Instead, now he was going to be stuck babysitting, not that he had ever even done that before, but how hard could it be?

"I guess. Promise me we can do the Air & Space Museum today?"

"Absolutely, if we don't have enough time to do all of it, we can do it again tomorrow. Also, be nice to Charlie. I didn't get a chance to tell you, but the reason she's even staying with Miles this week is because her brother Danny is going in for surgery and her parents thought she deserved a nice vacation, so she'll probably joining us with Miles when we do some of the museums. Not only that, but I think her parents are separating, they've been fighting a while and I don't know how she's taking it, so be nice. If I find out you made her cry, you don't even want to know what will happen, got it?"

"Yes, sir, we'll be fine," Connor nodded, moving back to the kitchen to make his own stack of waffles. He absolutely did not want to find out what would happen if he upset Charlie, so he just had to make sure nothing went wrong while he was in charge. He didn't know if he really wanted a little kid following them around, but he knew if he didn't want her, Miles wouldn't come and he loved spending time with both Miles and Dad. Mostly because any time he teased his dad, Miles would join in and tell him another story or help rub it in more.

"Good. If you need anything, text us first, ok?" Dad gave him a quick hug just as Miles shoved the last of the waffles in his mouth, both of them running out the door, but not before one last glance back, "And don't let Charlotte watch Ghostbusters!"

"HEY!" she shrieked from the kitchen.

"Too late, they're gone, it's just you and me," Connor said, smirking.

She stuck her tongue out at him and finished off her breakfast, leaving the mess behind for him to clean up. What was he going to do with her? He had no idea when Dad was getting back or even what was in the house to occupy her. He had his own room, but it was all filled with his stuff, nothing really to play with Charlie. He cleaned up the breakfast dishes, just putting them in the dishwasher before going upstairs to see if there were any movies that he might enjoy that Charlie could watch, since apparently Ghostbusters was off-limits, he'd have to ask her about that later. As he was about to grab a movie, he heard a loud crash from the kitchen. He ran down the stairs, almost tripping on the last one as he round the corner to the kitchen to find the bar stool on its side and Charlie grinning as she stood on the counter.

"What are you doing up there?" Connor asked her, trying to figure out what could even be up in that cabinet that was necessary for her to climb on the counter.

"Uncle Miles keeps all the good snack foods hidden up here behind the healthy granola bars. Says Bass won't ever grab those boxes out and I should only go up there when Bass isn't home," she answered matter-of-factly. This explained why Connor never knew about it, he was rarely left in the house without Dad. "Ah ha, Girl Scout cookies, jackpot! Want to share?"

"Okay," he answered hesitantly, not sure if he'd get in trouble for eating Miles's snacks.

"Help me down and put the bar stool back so Uncle Miles doesn't find out."

"But won't he notice the cookies missing?"

"Nah, it's opened. As long as we put the box back, he'll just think he ate them and doesn't remember. Duh."

Not wanting Charlie to climb back on the counter, Connor put the box away after they had eaten some. Dad wasn't kidding when he said that Miles and Charlie both had sweet teeth, considering he just watched her finish off a pile of waffles. When Connor put the box back, he saw several more boxes and other candies hidden behind the granola bars he knew Dad was always complaining about, since Miles kept buying them but never seemed to eat them. While Connor straightened up the kitchen, he heard another crash. What more trouble could one kid cause? This time the crash had come from the bathroom.

Connor peaked in the bathroom slowly, unsure of what he would find. It turned out Charlie had somehow wrapped herself up in the shower curtain and ended up pulling the show curtain and rod down with her. She told him she had just started to trip and grabbed the curtain, which came down with her when she fell. She was fine, she insisted, nothing hurt more than normal. Connor figured she was a generally clumsy kid, considering this was the second time she had fallen since this morning. Now he wanted to keep her sitting down so he wouldn't have to explain any more "oops" to Dad.

Dad kept a deck of cards on the end tables in the living room, maybe Charlie would want to play a game of Go Fish or Crazy Eights and they were easy enough to teach. He started to shuffle the cards before she grabbed them out of his hands and shuffled them like a pro.

"Texas Hold'em or maybe a little blackjack, your choice?" she asked as she continued to shuffle the cards. He could only imagine the look on his face, she wanted to play poker or blackjack? Obviously she had spent too much time hanging out with Dad and Miles. He looked around the kitchen, he wasn't about to play with real money and playing with Monopoly money wasn't nearly as much fun. As he rummaged through the drawers and cabinets, Charlie shouted, "If you're looking for something to bet with, Uncle Miles keeps Jolly Ranchers, jelly beans, and mints in the bottom nightstand drawer."

She continued to shuffle while Connor grabbed the candy, setting the jelly beans to be worth 1, Jolly Ranchers to be worth 5 and mints to be worth 10. They managed to play a few games before Connor noticed a pattern and accused Charlie of cheating. She didn't take this accusation lightly and threw some of the candy at him, which he retaliated with his own candy. She jumped up and threw the cards at him, which was when he grabbed the throw pillows (courtesy of his mom during their last visit) and tossed them at her. She tossed another one back at him, and that was how Dad and Miles found them when they came back home.

"CONNOR! What the hell happened here?" Dad yelled, looking at the mess of candy, cards and pillows. Miles shook his head as Charlie smiled and pointed at Connor, as Connor pointed at Charlie, with both of them blaming the other one.

"Bass, please, no one's hurt. We used to cause worse trouble for Ben when we were that age and this is the first time Connor and Charlie have met," Miles couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of their living room. When Mom had convinced Dad to get the throw pillows, Miles had tried to tell her they'd just end on the floor because they weren't comfortable at all. Connor had agreed with him and realized they made perfect pillows to actually throw at someone since every single one of the pillows had been tossed at either him or Charlie and were now scattered all of the room. He counted his blessings that they hadn't broken anything.

As part of their punishment for making the mess, Charlie and Connor had to clean up the living room while Dad and Miles made them lunch. After eating, they headed out to the Air & Space Museum, something he had been looking forward to. The exhibits were fascinating and Dad had agreed to taking them to the planetarium. What he probably didn't think of was Miles falling asleep and snoring through part of the show, until Charlie finally kicked him awake. At least this was certainly a memorable day and one Connor wasn't likely to forget.


End file.
